12 oz bottle from my recent Columbus, OH trip.
Nice color on the pour, but the beer lacks life. The red highlights and general bright body and clarity are encouraging, but then the lack of carbonation, head, lace and retention let the beer down.
Some light malts in the nose and not much else.
The beer delivers a decent malt punch and a little too much dry character that I really don’t want in the style. The beer fades quite quickly and is easily forgotten. Decent malt tastes for the style with some dry notes that DO define it, but the lack of life lets me down. This would be a better beer if it were trying to be an American Red; as an “English” ESB it’s seriously lacking.
A beer that is lost in the sea of average craft beers and would need to step up quite a few notches before I could imagine me ranking this in a manner that would mean I would seek it again.